Approaching Normal
by Sir Lilith
Summary: Three years into the future, Utau is in her third year of high school, Kukai in his freshman year, and the other Guardians are in middle school. Utau can't deny her feelings for Kukai as she encounters him again for the first time in these three years.
1. Chapter 1  Playlist

**Chapter 1 - Play list**

**Hey Lolli-naustic here, this is my first story on this site. SPOILER ALERT to those who have not read the complete manga series.**

**This story takes place in the future, three or so years into the future. Utau is now in her third year of high school and Kukai is in his first. Amu and the other Guardians are in middle school still (i am going by k-5 is elementary, 6-8 is middle, and 9-12 is high) So the others are in 8th and 7th.**

**Disclaimer- I obviously do not own these characters or Shogo Chara. Nor do i own any bands or songs mentioned in this fic.**

**((But i do own the character Lilly Hamilton, she's purely mine! though i don't think i mention her last name in this yet...))**

**Rate, review, and enjoy.**

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><p>5:58<p>

The green numbers dimly lit the room around her still body.

Utau lay unmoving as she watched the digits flicker with each second until the one number changed a minute later.

5:59

Almost there. The next sixty seconds stretched out for what seemed like an eternity. Her eyes slowly blinking, and her mind blank, she waited for the remaining seconds to go buy.

6:OO BEEP BEEP! BEEP BEEP!

Finally. Utaus hand immediately hit the off button on top the black alarm clock, silencing it.

She hastily slipped out of bed and out of her dim room as the sun peeked through the curtains behind her beds' frame.

Uatu had recently gotten into the habit of waking up ten minutes before she actually intended on getting up. Even during break she had gotten up, what seemed to her, ten minutes to soon. She'd lye in her bed motionless staring at the clock or at the ceiling for the next ten minutes, not a thought going through her mind. The alarm on her clock would be the only thing to re-awaken her censes.

Utau felt her way through the darkened hall, feeling up the walls until her hand caught the rim of the door that opened to the bathroom. She opened the door and nearly jumped when a warm fur ball rubbed against her ankles through her grey sweats. It was only that dumb cat Ikuto found and named after his chara that was now gone from their lives. Though Utaus' charas were still around. Somewhere.

She bent over and scratched behind the cats' ears, causing him to purr as he strutted down the hallway to Ikutos' empty room.

Paying no more mind to Yuro, Utau flicked on the lights in the bathroom as she shut and locked the door behind her. A moment after she flipped the switch the lights lazily flickered to life. The lights buzzed above her head, effectively annoying the hell out of Utau. She walked the short distance to the sink where a back dock rest with her Ipod touch third generation attached to it.

She pressed the power button on the top of her dock and her Ipods screen lit up with life. She pressed play on the screen and the last song she was listening to resumed from the begging.

The song playing happened to be one from the play list Lilly put on her Ipod. Lilly was an American exchange student who arrived at the end of last year and was going to be around for this year then leaving back to New York in America the following summer. Utau and her had become fast friends; the moment Lilly found out that Utau was THEE Utau Tsukiyomi she was all over Utau. It was a terrible experience but soon she found Lilly to be an interesting girl. She was a little younger than her and she had a ton of music to show Utau. All of the American bands were… incredibly strange to Utau. Some music she found repulsive. The screaming was deafening, but the lyrics some songs had were too explicit for Utau. Like in a certain band. What was it… she tried to recall the name of the band; Oh right, it was 'Blood on the Dance Floor'.

The music was fun and up beat but when Lilly translated the English into Japanese for her… God how could someone listen to such things? America was a weird place surely.

The music playing now was a song from 'Blue October', Utaus favorite English band.

After ten minutes of 'Blue October' she was just finishing her shower. Before stepping out of the shower, Utau ran her hand through her damp blonde locks to make sure she had washed out all of the conditioner.

Since the conditioner was fully washed out Utau reached her hand out to grab the towel hanging up beside the shower.

With the pink towel wrapped around her petite frame, she took a smaller towel out of the pantry underneath the sink to dry her hair.

6:26

As she reached for the blow dryer beside the sink the song playing changed to anger and screaming catching Utau by surprise. She jumped at the sudden change in tempo, slipping on her sweat pants, panties, and tee shirt that she had worn to sleep. Utau let out a hoarse yelp as she fell, the back of her head hitting the counter before landing on the floor with a thud.

"Oh oh oh oh ooooww" she hissed through her teeth while rubbing the back of her head.

Stumbling to her feet Utau grabbed the dryer, changed the song to something of hers, and finished drying her hair before moving on the do her light makeup.

6:48

Utau pulled her black uniform skirt up to her natural waistline and buttoned the shirt over her dark purple lace bra.

Her fingers played with the mesh outline of the skirt while she checked over her reflection in the full body sized mirror on her wall by the large window.

Turning to see her ass in the mirror she decided to put her hair up into high pigtails on either side of her head.

Her long blonde locks rested on her shoulders spilling from the mismatching hair-ties above. Satisfied on her look she glanced over at the clock.

6:52

She still had an hour or two until school legitimately started. Utau lazily brushed her pearl white teeth and pulled a piece of mint gum out of the packet on her nightstand than headed down the stairs out the door and down the street. Even though she still had plenty of time to get to school, and it took only about ten minutes to walk there, she still skipped out on breakfast. It was important to be thin with Utaus carrier.

Even after leaving Easter Utau continued her singing carrier, she had many offers for movies and record deals, so nothing really changed for her singing wise.

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><p>This was Utaus third year in high school, and as she rounded the corner she saw the very familiar building. Walking through the school grounds she noticed that hardly anyone other than teachers were in the school. A few eager freshmen were walking around in small groups, trying to find their homeroom before classes started to avoid the hassle of rushing around the school in fear of being late or being picked on by the higher ups. Utau walked over to the main entrance where the homerooms were posted on a large white board. Four boards in total for each year. Before searching for her name on the third years board, she scanned the freshman's names. Her two orbs stopping as she reached a name on the list for class B-2.<p>

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><p>- Souma, Kukai<p>

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><p>A memory flashed in her head. The day almost three years ago, when she was still a freshman in high school and he was in sixth grade and the rest of the Guardians in fifth or fourth. On the swing set where Souma Kukai kissed her. Kissed her!<p>

It was a sweet memory, followed by a bitter one. The media caught hold of the relationship and it was relentless torture from there. She was called a pervert for dating a younger boy along with pedophile and numerous other things. It was like taboo for them or something. They weren't even that far apart age wise! Her stepfather strongly disliked the attention she was receiving and so did her agent. They had to break it off and were forbidden from seeing him again.

It was ridiculous! But that was years ago. Yet Utau found herself feeling sad just looking at the name printed on the paper pinned to the coloured wood.

She still had feelings for him, weird-confusing feelings, like back then.

She pulled her Ipod out of her bag and put the black buds into her ears, drowning out her thoughts as the music blasted and she continued searching for her name on the correct board.

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><p>After finding her homeroom on the paper she started her way through the halls, up the stairs and through more halls.<p>

A girl in a higher grade was walking around the halls with four other girls and a boy, likely her boyfriend by the way they acted. Avoiding them Utau walked as close to the window as possible, running her hand along the glass as she walked. Utau noticed that someone had opened on of the windows wide open. She approached the window the close it but as she was a few feet away she felt herself being pulled, or push rather, to the ground. Her bag went flying out of her hand and out the window, tugging the headphones from her ears as her Ipod, which was in her school bag as it went flying out the window. It felt like time slowed down just to torture Utau further as her bad went through and down from the third story. To the Second, then as she shrugged her way off the floor she watched in horror as it hit the water in splashing the walkway around the fountain.

"NOOO!" Utau screeched as it hit.

She cursed wildly as she started to climb out the window; someone was pulling her back shouting in practiced Japanese that she was sorry, then breaking into English apologies.

"Lilly you bitch!" She shouted turning around "My IPOD was in there!"

"I am so sorry Utau!"

"That wont fix my ipod! You dumb-" she cut off as she noticed a certain orange head bobbing around outside. She turned as the boy fished Utaus bag out of the fountain. Her turned and gazed up to where the bag had fallen from, and, to see who was shouting.

Utaus eyes widened with horror as her shouted up her name

"Utau?" he asked loudly, but to late Utau had dodged under the window and out of sight. Kukai was holding her bag up confused.

"Lilly! Lilly say it's yours"

"What? Why? What for Uta-"

"Shhhhhh, just do it! And I am NOT here" she whispered loudly up at the pale American blonde with pink dye in the under layer of her hair.

"Ok" she hissed then leaned out the window "HEY! That's my bag; I tripped and out it flew! Sorry bout the uh yelling. That was me to" she said doubting the red head would be dumb enough to believe that she was shouting at herself.

Even though Utau couldn't see him she knew Kukai was dumb enough to believe that white lie Lilly just spun.

But apparently he'd gotten smarter.

She heard his voice shout back up "No, I saw Utau. Tell her that I'll give it to her, and only to her personally. Not you uh…" his voice faded, unsure what he was supposed to call Lilly.

Lilly shrugged and bent over slightly to make it obvious that she was talking to someone on the floor. Smirking as she spoke "Hey that boy said-"

"I know what he said!" Utau hissed. Then started crawling across the hallway to be out of anyone's view beyond the window. She stood, dusted herself off then headed for the stairway.

"Oh yeah!" the American called after her "we have homeroom together, I'll tell the teacher you can't make it to first and I'll get your schedule for you"

Utau answered in a sweet voice "Thanks and since I'm headed down stairs should I drop by the nurses and tell them to prepare a bed for you?"

"What do you-… oh… You're a bitch"

Well this was going to be fun.

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><p><strong>So what do you think?<strong>

**I crave you opinions, good or bad. Please rate and review. If someone rates/ reviews i will have the next chapter out by New Years (which is coming up... less then a week people!) thank you so much for reading my fic! ~ Lolli-naustic**


	2. Not a chapter!

**Hello readers of das story.**

**I have some good news and some bad news.**

**First the bad; obviously I have not kept my word. No new chapters have been submitted. BUT before you decide I'm a lazy good for nothing I have to explain a little as to why I haven't. I had been in the hospital on Christmas eve and then some. Now I am no longer there ****_but_ I still go to a treatment for the Lymes in my nervous system every day, making writing much more difficult than it needs to be and updated like I promised.**

**Now the good news! I do have a rough copy of chapter two and three (though three is incomplete still) and have started writing the chapters in my computer (because I write every thing in a journal first then type it and edit in the computer) so hopefully I can have it done sooner than later.**

**I will answer the question/s for the first chapter along with this apology thing.**

**Shimaxkutau- Yes Nikaido and Yukari are married still in my fic. You are right, and at the very very end of Shugo Chara was their wedding so I don't see any reason to change that. Though the few times they appear in my fic they will be arguing, since it sounds like something they'd do huh?**

**xXMinako35cuteXx – I'm not totally sure what it is your asking… if it's important please clarify.**

**If I missed any questions I'm sorry and one last thing. There is a ton of spelling and grammar errors. Like 'He' instead of 'She' and many things like that. I'm sure you've all noticed.**

** Thank you for your reviews 3 and i'll have the next chapter out soon(ish)!**


	3. Chapter 2 Bubble Gum and Flowers

**Chapter 2 – Bubble gum**

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><p>Utau walked up to the marble fountain outside of the school. She passed a group of boys who started talking, laughing quietly, and glancing over at her as she stomped around the fountain, only to find Kukai not there. The nerve! Kukai didn't even wait there, he just up and left. Was this some kind of joke, like <em>'o hey lets all laugh while Utau runs around hopelessly searching for her iPod from some red headed prick that will disappear for the hell of it!'<em>

She was losing calm, Utau regrouped her calm, spiting the flavorless rubber into the grass and popping a new strip of mint gum into her mouth from the pocket in her skirt. She dared a glance at the group of freshmen. One of the boys, much taller than her little frame, was walking toward her now. A big white smile plastered to his olive face. She turned away and pretended not to see him as he approached her.

Her eyes swept the area surrounding her. No Kukai. Where had he gone?

A voice came from behind her. He was even taller than she thought him to be. With coal black eyes and short midnight black hair pushed upward at his bangs by some sort of hair-gel. "Hey you're that chick right?"

"That _chick_?" Utau snapped agitatedly at the freshman.

"Yeah. Blonde, short, pretty cute… Matches his description."

Utaus glare silenced him.

He fumbled for words a moment before his goofy smile returned bright as ever "Uh yeah, well Kukai said to meet him at-"

"Kukai!" She surprised herself when she suddenly exclaimed the name. A faint blush crossed over her cheeks, but went unnoticed.

"Uh yeah, so you know him?"

Looking down Utau nodded. "Uh yeah, we're old" she paused briefly "friends."

The word felt alien in her mouth. She swallowed, and recomposed herself to not let on that his name shook her up a bit. Her glare could shatter glass now.

Utau caught a glimpse of her reflection in a window a few yards away. She looked fairly cool and composed.

"Uh yeah like I was saying…. Wait a sec" he stopped, looking her over "You look so much like that pop star… uh what's her name?" He looked back at the group of boys asking them if they knew her name. A few of them knew, it seemed. They spoke all at slightly different times, making the over all answer sound like gibberish. They looked around before one of the others spoke up "I think her name's Utau."

The brunette nodded. "Yeah you look like that chick Utau" He started to say something more but Utau looked up at him, arms crossed as she said promptly "That's because I AM Uatu retard."

He looked shocked but somehow that smile didn't leave his lips. It was so much like the way Kukai smiled. She hated seeing it on this freakishly tall kid. "Wipe that damned smile off too." She scorned.

He took a step back. "Really?" he asked stunned "Your really Utau?"

"Yeah, so? I'm a person. At school that's all I am all right? It's really damn annoying when people fuss over the all mighty '_me_'" She put emphasis on the word 'me'.

"Oh, sorry then" he apologized half-heartedly.

"Oh forget it, now where's Kukai, Kid?" she was very annoyed with this guy now.

His pearly smile returned "Oh right, he's over at the soccer field. He wanted to talk to you or something. I was told to tell the blonde girl that came looking for her bag to go there."

That's all she needed to hear, she was by far done with this kid.

"Hey Utau" he called after she only made it a few feet away.

She spun around.

"The name's Shigure, not _Kid_ thank you." A mocking smile played his lips. What a jerk.

Utau left the group of freshmen laughing behind her as she stormed over to the soccer field behind the school.

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><p>She trudged through the grass around the brick corner of the school down the thin dirt path to the reddened earth of the running track. An old chain link fence that snaked its way around the school and separated the soccer fields from the running track. She walked across the reddish dirt painted by the white lines that made a large oval. The gate had been closed off for a while, glued shut by rust and vines that decorated the whole fence.<p>

She walked along the fence, her fingers running along the links and over the vines. The gate was mostly undetectable; it took a careful eye to spot.

She came across the thicker metal in the chain wall. Her hand traced the outline of the gate. It was woven to the rest of the fence by vines. Utau shifted her weight to her right leg crossing her arms. She stepped back to examine the whole gate.

She pinched her fingers together and rubbed the red dust between them while thinking.

A sharp enough stick could cut through these plants quite easily. She looked around by a tree that stood awkwardly by the fence a ways down to her left. She wandered over to it, eyeing the twigs on the ground. Not good enough.

As she prepared to break a branch off the tree something crossed her mind. Kukai had gotten over there quick enough, but apparently not through the gate. Knowing him he would have just climbed easily over the six-foot fence. Of course he had.

She walked back along the fence, her fingers continued to glide against the bumps and rust of the metal links. Chomping angrily on the now barely minty gum she walked along. After a few minutes of walking back and forth and chewing loudly she found the perfect spot for climbing. The vines were bigger here, and the fence a good foot lower then the rest. She glanced around nervously. Something caught her eye. She turned and noticed a person, most defiantly a teacher, rushing her way.

Utau cursed under her breath.

"Stop! What are you doing girl, get to class!" she heard the angry voice behind her. But she was no longer looking at him. She jumped onto the fence and hastily started climbing over, her skirt snagged on a lose wire. She cursed and pulled it free, no doubt flashing whoever was looking at her, which probably included the male teacher shouting confused threats behind her, much closer now. But it was too late, Utau was already jumping off the top onto the lush green below. The ground was muddy here, Utau almost slipped when she landed with a soft thud. But she regained her balance quick enough so she didn't land back-first into mud.

She looked back at the teacher who was now just a couple yards away from the fence.

"Girl!" He painted "What are you doing? Class started ten minutes ago!"

Utau saw that the sweaty red-faced man was, somehow, the gym coach. Against all logical logic of the logic world this over weight man was the gym teacher. Maybe it was because he was incredibly strict and always made students do laps for messing something up or talking when he was. She did not want to be caught by him.  
>Utau quickly turned away. He was far to out of breath to possibly climb, much less yell anymore. Then started running across the first field.<p>

It took her a few moments of chewing on nothing to realize that she had swallowed her gum when she had slipped backwards. She cursed quietly as she jogged out of sight and onto the next field.

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><p>There are three very large soccer fields behind the school, followed by a public park. The fields are each separated by three thick rows of Sakura trees, making seeing past the individual fields impossible. After she passed the first row of pink trees she slowed down, walking as slow as she pleased across the second and third fields.<p>

She approached the end off the last field, confused.

Kukai was nowhere. She walked through the brush of pink spotted trees, tore and squished the delicate blossoms that had fallen to the ground with her dirty school shoes as she walked.

The trees were absolutely beautiful today. The wind gently lifted the flowers from the ground around her feet. The pink blossoms danced around her slowly with the wind, it was enchanting. She felt like singing. But knowing Kukai could possibly hear her singing made her settle on quietly humming to herself.

She was wandering into the park, that was essentially empty at first glance, no longer caring that she was missing school. She decided to just ditch school today, Kukai or no Kukai. The world around her was lush with greens, pinks, and whites. Little blue flowers dotted the grass around her feet. It was so calm here. She forgot everything she was doing in an instant. Her humming got louder before turning into words of a song she had sung when she was little. A song that was gentle and sweet, yet somehow lonely and bitter.

Utau sang this song rarely. She had written it a long time ago, when she was feeling left alone. Forgotten.

Utau wasn't sure exactly when she started sing, or when she had gotten to the swing set. Her eyes followed a butterfly as it landed on a lone flower. The petals spread wide and slunk slightly as the butterfly landed on it, shaking slightly as it took off again. Her voice rang through the emptiness of the park. A light, now more quiet melody, which was now ending. She started humming the last few notes, leaning back in the swing. Only for her head to bump into the stomach of a certain redhead. Her eyes widened as she stared straight up at Kukai, who was smiling wickedly down at her.

"Kukai!" She exclaimed surprised, jumping off the swing to face him.

"Long time no see. That song was pretty sad, never heard it before. Is it new?"

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><p><strong>So what'd you guys think? I'm sorry for the long wait! Please rate and review!<strong>

**This time i even double checked the grammar! **

**love this sick girl, Lilith (i mean...) Lolli-naustic 3 **


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